Sure, he wasn’t a blogger, but he built one of the most devoted audiences in history, long before the Internet came along. Imagine the audience you could attract today – with all the advantages of the web and social media – if you applied some of the skills and characteristics of Walt Disney.

Let’s examine how it all started for him back in 1920.

#1. Be Passionate About Sharing Your Passion

Walt Disney had a simple goal: to earn a living doing what he loved – drawing. So he got a job as a commercial artist for an advertising company in Kansas.

In the evenings, he would go to the movies where newsreels and cartoons were as popular as the feature films.

Like blogging today, the animation industry was young. There were no rule books. No conventions to follow. The door was wide open, and Walt Disney was hooked.

He found his passion.

He was itching to produce his own cartoons. He knew he could improve on what he saw. His brain was exploding with ideas.

He had always wanted to make a name for himself. He realized that sharing his ideas through this exciting new medium was the way for him to achieve that ambition.

The potential of engaging with a cinema audience through his cartoons sent shivers up his spine.

And that’s what you need to feel.

As a blogger, you must have the drive to share your ideas with a massive audience who craves the knowledge and information only you can provide.

References & Resources to Help You Learn

This is a thought-provoking piece about the importance of connecting authentically with your audience. A wonderful starting point. If you do nothing else today, subscribe to Bernadette Jiwa’s superb updates.

Be A Better Blogger’s very own Kevin J. Duncan recently updated this epic post, which is also available as a handy 38-page PDF. It’s the ultimate guide to writing a blog post and should sit right next to Jon’s Headline Hacks on your bedside table.

#3. Get Yourself Noticed

Disney soaked up all the knowledge he could about his craft while he was still working at an ad company. Then he borrowed a film camera from his boss and made his first cartoons at night.

After several attempts, he managed to sell them to a small cinema chain in Kansas. The price didn’t cover his costs, but he gained something much more important.

He got himself noticed.

He gained exposure to a wide audience. He won applause and attention. His audience wanted more, and Walt Disney experienced his first taste of success.

Today, we call this guest blogging.

Disney was able to give up his day job and launch his first commercial cartoon venture because he already had an audience.

You may already have a blog but not a sizeable audience. Or you may be about to launch a new blog.

Either way, you should consider guest blogging.

Why?

Because it puts you in front of a large audience who already shares your interests and passion. It gives you the credibility and endorsement of the blog owner and exposure to a wide network of influencers. It gives you traffic, clicks, and shares.

All of which are much harder to achieve when nobody notices you.

References & Resources to Help You Become an Expert Guest Blogger and Get Noticed

While this post by Henneke Duistermaat isn’t strictly about adding value, that’s exactly what it’s about, if you get my twisted meaning. Simply reverse these 11 common mistakes into 11 habits every blogger should get into, and you will automatically add value to your audience.

#6. Be Different

Cartoons in America in the 1920s were rough and ready. Crude and violent. They made people laugh at the expense of others’ pain and misfortune. The industry gold standard was Felix the Cat.

Walt Disney spent hours studying these popular cartoons. He looked for ways to enchant his audience through his own voice. To stand out from the crowd and be different.

And, boy, was he different.

He put a real girl in Alice in Cartoonland and achieved mind-boggling success with Mickey Mouse, initially through the magic of sound.

Mickey went on to win the hearts of audiences around the world. No other cartoon character had been so likable, so human. And that was his point of difference.

Finding your own point of difference as a blogger takes practice, but you can do it.

Just remember: it has to be authentic. It has to be your voice.

It has to take your readers on an unexpected journey that leaves them captivated, educated, or entertained.

And moved enough to share the experience with an ever-increasing audience.

Henneke is one of my favorite bloggers. She engages and delights while she’s telling us how to engage and delight. And that’s an art.

Bring It All Together and Create Your Own Magic

After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney went on to repeat his phenomenal box office success with movies like Pinocchio and Bambi. Over the next 30 years, he built an empire of such epic proportions that even he would have found it hard to imagine.

And he did it all off the back of seven inherent characteristics and skills.

Inherent in him, perhaps. But here they are, laid out for you like the secret recipe to a wizard’s spell.

You start with a pinch of passion (and a strong desire to share it).

You add some serious study, getting noticed, the odd failure, and massive value.

Then you stir it into an offering that’s so different it’s going to surprise and delight your audience.

And the final ingredient? Emotional connection with hundreds of thousands – no, millions – of people who want to share it.

Now, close your eyes and whisper the magic words:

My audience is waiting. Step by step I can do this. And today I will take the first step.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Mel, what a great way of writing and teaching us different things via Walt Disney. I think many of us must experience failure before we truly exceed. Nothing can teach us better than experience. And even better if we can learn from others along the way.
I love all the examples you provided us sling the way, I have a lot more reading to do now
Thank you Mel and thanks to Kevin for having you here.

Recently, I spent an awful amount of hours just researching and reading up on him.

I don’t know why I did but I sure learned a lot reading about him. Yes, he had his downsides (and that seriously affected his company) but his doggedness is quite inspiring.

For one, he was never scared to have his ideas stolen. So the tip for the blogger: create cornerstone content so great everyone’s stealing from them (lesson to you, lazybum Busayo).

He rendered expletives a lot and this attitude was often heightened when faced with financial hitches in his company. People complained he was a pinhead who didn’t care much about his use of words. But did he care? No.

We obviously both found that Walt Disney’s story resonated with us as bloggers. The more I explored his life, the more parallels I discovered. And there you go, I missed a couple of his attributes which you picked up. Thanks for those.

I’m not sure I would agree that his brand was built on his use of profanities, but I certainly agree he was completely indifferent to what other people thought about him, and that was definitely part of his unique branding.

FABulous! I build all I do off #1. Follow your fun. Pursue your passion. Have gobs of fun. I do what I feel passionate about, telling my travel stories and linking to blogging and doing videos and having more fun and letting my passion bleed thru my work. Loyal people return to their source of passion, or their apparent source of passion. That’s where we come in. Passionate folks, shining brightly.

Not that you needed to hear that (you have talent to be darn sure)…but this is a “gotta bookmark” feature.

Now, I say this mainly because I just read it, and cartoons have been my life for 30 years…and after so m any struggles in changing from comic books to writing middle grade novels, I realized, JUST TODAY that my greatest tool for getting my books known has always BEEN comics.

Then I see your article.

Gosh, it’s just a confirmation of a truth as far as I’m concerned.

I feel like a teen that just had his dream girl ask HIM out on a date.

I always like making new friends. I’m not sure how to answer your question, though. What if my idea of fun isn’t the same as yours? Fun for me involves travel, friends and champagne, or a combination of two. But if it has to be one, I’ll take the champagne.

As a Florida girl, I love DisneyWorld in Orlando. I have gone there for 36 years – at least once a year. My (lucky) son grew up going at least twice a year and even worked there while going to college!

But I never knew that much about Walt. I enjoyed the metaphor of his life/career to the blogging world.

I love the story about Walt Disney. We always tend to think that the internet age has changed everything. You’ve proven here that whatever happens, a lot remains the same. It’s still about being passionate, hard work and connecting with our audience.

I’m one of the lucky one’s that grew up in the LA area and a chance to go to Disneyland, but I never knew the Walt Disney story. You have a genuine way of telling this great story and at the same time teaching a lesson about building a loyal audience. Although I’ve been blogging since 2010, there’s always room for improvement and posts like these shows it!

Walt Disney has suffered from being seen as the cause of a malign disease: the Disneyfication of the world. But what you have written is a very welcome reminder of the grit and talent that was required by WD to set up his extraordinary and – in my humble opinion – wholly benign empire. As well as being a great metaphor for the points you wanted to make. Mel, I think your blog shows how to combine top writing and smart research to great effect. A quality benchmark for us all. Let us know where we can see more…

You’re right. In his early days Walt Disney was overlooked by the movie industry as being just a cartoonist and not a serious movie maker. And that has evolved into the ‘Disneyfication’ syndrome. But the fact still remains he was a man of true vision and single minded determination. . . Attributes every blogger should strive for.

Your creativity Mel to comparing the struggles and successes of learning to blog well is fantastic. I agree with all of your points, and especially with the suggestion to be different and to aim for the heart. Glen Long recommends that a good blog should change a person. It seems as though a popular blog takes as much creativity and work as incredible art work. With the increase of available blogs and decrease for engagement, it may be time to innovate how we blog and reach out to what our listeners want to read about. ~Keri